1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and system for reloading an operating system (OS) in a computer system, and, more particularly, to reloading the OS without a memory reset.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems present some challenges with regard to reloading or re-installing operating systems (OSs). The main problem is a memory management. Typically, a file system needs to be stored to another computer or backed up to a storage media. Otherwise, the file system data is lost after re-installation of the OS.
This problem is addressed by MICROSOFT WINDOWS™ Hotpatching Technology. However, this technology is highly unstable, for two reasons: (1) binary code analysis required to prepare a binary patch cannot be solved by a deterministic algorithm, and (2) hot-patching only works for code changes that keep objects (data) intact, but only change/fix algorithms. Furthermore, implementation of the updates becomes very complex and expensive. System updates create costly down-times for servers operating with large amounts of data. Conventional methods use data migration to another server. This is also an expensive process requiring at least one more server and also creating a long down-time on the migrated server.
In particular, the problem for a server with a large amount of RAM (e.g., 1 TB) is that transfer of that much data to some other medium (e.g., to a disk, or over a network to another machine) is a long process—several minutes, if not hours, given the limitations of the communications channel bandwidth and/or disk read/write speed. For many applications, this is an unacceptably long time.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an efficient and inexpensive method for reloading the OS on a computer system without a physical memory reset.